Hiking the Mickelson Trail – Hill City Trailhead
It has been several weeks, but I finally got to do another hike in the snow as I continue to explore the George S. Mickelson Trail. One of the reasons I chose to hike sections of this trail from each of its 14 trailheads over the winter was that there would be fewer people and fewer bicycles on the trail. But the other was to see a variety of scenic views of the Black Hills covered with snow. With six more trailheads to go, hopefully we’ll continue getting more snow in the coming weeks for my remaining hikes.
Having hiked most of the previous 48 miles south from Deadwood, my next starting point was at the Burlington Northern Hill City Trailhead. This trailhead is located near the middle of Hill City in Tracy Park, just off Railroad Avenue close to the 1880 Train Depot and across the street from the Hill City High School. Like the other trailheads along the Mickelson Trail, here you’ll find a nice shelter with picnic tables for relaxing before or after your hike, a self-service fee station to purchase your Mickelson Trail Pass if you need one, and a bike service station if you are biking on the trail. This stop also has a fully modern restroom, a historic building that is open in the summers, and a playground for the kids.
To reach the trail itself, you have to walk back out to Railroad Avenue and follow the sidewalk right to go north or left to go south. Since I have been hiking south from each of the trailheads, I turned left. As with my previous hikes exploring the Mickelson Trail, I originally planned on going about five miles down the trail. However, I ended up going just a little bit further than that.
Where Railroad Avenue turns to meet Main Street, the trail goes from concrete to gravel and passes mile marker 60 going south. For the first three miles or so, the trail crosses open fields and runs behind several campgrounds and private homes and businesses. Although it was relatively quiet on a weekday in early winter, I imagine this gets to be a pretty busy area during the summers.
There are several wooden bridges crossing small streams and beautiful views of the nearby hills early on. With the ice and snow from a recent storm, the ice-covered streams were stunning to see. There are actually quite a few bridges along this section of the trail, which I think is a charming aspect of the entire Mickelson Trail in general. One of the coolest bridges here spans across Highway 385 near mile marker 57. I have driven under this bridge many times, but I never realized that it was part of the Mickelson Trail.
The highlight of this hike for me was reaching the Oreville stop near the halfway point in the 108.8-mile Mickelson Trail. This was the first shelter along the trail I have seen that wasn’t at an official trailhead. Apparently during the early days of the railroad Oreville was an important stop, but never fully developed into a town. This is a nice place to rest or eat a snack on the trail but be aware there is no restroom here. Once I got to this point, I decided to keep going a little further until I was sure I had crossed the halfway mark.
One other unique point on the trail is a little ways past Oreville where the trail passes through a tunnel underneath Highway 385. Although not quite as impressive as the large train tunnels that are further north, it was still fun to walk through this long tunnel under the highway.
I believe it was somewhere close to here that I crossed the 54.4-mile mark, which is halfway between Edgemont and Deadwood. Just to be certain, I continued on until I reached mile marker 54. I was a little disappointed that I had to turn around here because the area was so lovely, but I had already come about 6.5 miles and needed to make the trek back before the sun went down.
Overall, I walked a little more than 13 miles round trip in about 5 hours. This was my longest hike on the George S. Mickelson Trail so far, although I expect to do a couple more long hikes like this going south where the trailheads are even further apart. There are times when I wonder about biking this trail so that I can cover the full distance between each of the trailheads, but then I think about how much more I can see walking the trail and the photo opportunities I would miss if I were riding by them. Maybe after I have visited all of the trailheads over the winter, I will take a couple of long summer days to bike the trail and see the few parts that I have missed.
